The year is dying in the night!

The year is on its last lap. A quick stock taking would be in order, I hope.  Figuratively speaking, no annus mirabilis this. But not a bad year either, all things considered.

A few personal losses.  Relatives and friends. Death came as a relief in some cases; at the most inappropriate time, in others. The bereaved families would have mustered enough courage and moved on.

Fell short of a few targets set for the year.  Will be carrying it forward. One is the unfinished work of compiling the articles and cartoons left by Vinod, my brother in law, who died at a young age. He was in the prime of his youth and had a promising carrier as a journalist. We wonder what heights he would have reached if he were alive today. He remains as young and fresh in our hearts.

Another resolution for the New Year is to acquire a new skill. A few ideas are already formed. Will choose the most feasible.

Will continue to write letters to the editor though none got published this year. To a large extent the blog has come in handy as a means of expression.  Shudder to think of a situation without the internet and the TV. These and the Hindu news paper are my windows to the civilized world. I live in a place where most of my daily human contacts necessitate a low brow approach. Where I have to curtail my language, words and ideas!  

Will try to look out for more like minded friends in the social net work sites as well as outside.
There is nothing that I would want to discontinue in the new year. Hopefully, I will walk, do physical work, read, write, browse and carry on with whatever I have been doing through the year that’s ending.

Let me end this with the  poem of Lord Tennyson:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.